Some people say that school days are the best day of our lives... but there are plenty of exceptions. When chronically bored student Alex seems to have no future, two of his teachers take the challenge to help him discover the motivation he lacks. The teachers, a couple in the middle of their divorce, will fight to impose the best way to make Alex a promising student.
Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.